Secret Scars
by EnchanteRhea
Summary: He can be there when he is needed. He can tend to the wounds and watch them heal. He cannot make the scars fade, his own least of all. [Kio, Soubi]


Note: I don't own Loveless. If I did, I would not be writing fanfiction. I hope you'll enjoy the story, though.

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**Secret Scars**  
by Rhea Logan

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Seconds dragged. Minutes crawled. Heavy raindrops drummed a gloomy rhythm against the window panes and Kio sat, motionless, counting Soubi's breaths.

Slender arms rested, lifeless, at Soubi's sides. So thin, Kio thought; he seemed entirely incapable of taking care of himself. His strained, weary muscles contracted, involuntarily, every once in a while. Heavy eyelids fluttered in erratic patterns laid by a dream. He looked asleep, and perhaps he was; Kio refused to venture past that safe, immediate thought. Blood, now dried, bore silent witness to the surface of Soubi's pain. Smeared on his skin, it was on Kio, too - his hair, his hands, his clothes - everything smelled of it. A scent, however faint, that Kio knew would linger around him even when he bathed.

It was suffocating, he thought uneasily, and he scolded himself for exaggerating like this.

He had asked Soubi – stubborn, incorrigible Soubi - to stay. Hell, he had begged. He'd had a bad feeling about this, _again,_ and he was not wrong. But Soubi never listened; not when Aoyagi's call dragged him out of class, or, Kio suspected, out of bed in the dead of night. It helped little to know that, sooner or later, Soubi always returned. It was much later, more often than it was not, and he seldom managed to find his way back on his own.

It was the worst the first time. Unsuspecting, Kio had picked up the phone, ready with a lungful of pent-up frustration to yell the sum of his concerns into the receiver. Soubi had not shown up at the studio when he had _promised_ to come. It seemed that simple, and anger came easily as well, unbidden yet unstoppable. But the voice at the other end had been whisper-soft; the words he had heard breathed foreign weakness into his limbs. He had thought Soubi would die – foolish as it later seemed – and so began what was now almost a routine.

It was no different this time, Kio thought with a sigh. He moved, for the first time since he had sat on the edge of the bed, and swept his glasses out of the way with a shaking hand. He rubbed at his eyes. So early in the afternoon, and he already felt weary, somehow heavier with the memory of Soubi's dead weight in his arms. Funny, he thought, how drained he felt, even though it was not him who had collapsed, crushed under too much pain.

Finding the first-aid kit had bordered on impossible, once – but that was _before_ Soubi and now, it was the one thing Kio always knew where to look for, just in case. He had brought a wet cloth to wipe the stains from Soubi's bruised cheek, but he had yet to gather the strength to do that. At times it seemed so hopeless, and he focused to ward off that unwanted thought – he was only good when he was needed. Other times, a call from somewhere else beckoned so much louder than his heart could speak; Soubi could not, and would not, see him for any more than he already had.

Now, he could not see him at all, and Kio knew he was giving in to the reluctant offer of this rare chance laid in front of him. Soubi's shirt was torn across his chest, the fabric tainted a darkening shade of red. Kio reached underneath, his timid touch a fleeting caress. He touched the burning flesh; pale, tender skin slashed open felt sticky under his fingertips.

He shuddered. He would tend to these wounds, as he had done before. He would wipe the blood away, clean the offending crust of crimson around the cuts. He would rub antiseptic medicine into the gashes with gentle fingers, trembling only slightly as he worked. He would patch him up; that careless man, that reckless, beautiful man, who would not remember any of it afterwards.

He was getting used to it. He had taken it upon himself and slowly, over time, Soubi had slipped past Kio's defenses, unwittingly, past the boundaries of common sense, and made himself all too comfortable in his heart. In the end, it did not matter where they went from there; now, that beautiful disaster was there to stay, and so was he. A thousand of other places, free from bloody trails across the floor, failed to promise enough relief to make him leave.

It took so little to lose himself in that moment; silent stillness, interrupted by nothing save the rhythmic in and out of Soubi's breathing, awakened instincts Kio would rather pretend he did not have. It took so much to resist the summons of that warmth, right there at his fingertips, spread beneath his hands. Alluring in its softness, Soubi's hair seemed to be there just for him; there to touch the light, silky strands, and _feel._

Elsewhere, he might belong to another. There and then, the world cared little for Soubi; but Kio was only Kio, and he felt for him more than he cared to admit. Later, he might break with regret; now, he dragged a light finger up Soubi's arm, heedless of the voice of reason that whispered behind his ear. Spare yourself the heartbreak, it hinted ever so softly, and he squashed it as though it told a lie. The heat of flesh assaulted him through the thin fabric of Soubi's shirt; this close, he could see goosebumps on those thin arms, even as he felt them raise the small hairs on his own. This close was still too far; far enough for loneliness to twinge his heart.

He felt more than he heard a sigh and Kio looked up, panicked, all but convinced he had ruined the peace of Soubi's sleep. He waited; long seconds measured by his heartbeat, a hollow echo inside his chest. He felt himself deflate when tension let go, at length, and another soft sigh brushed past Soubi's lips. Almost – just a little – he hoped to see those eyes open and gaze at him with recognition; he had for so long. But Soubi's head rolled to the side on the pillow and, before he knew, Kio found himself staring into the open collar of his shirt.

The sight of the scars it barely concealed was hard to resist. He had been allowed to look, but never to touch; the letters incised there were reason enough. Beloved. Such bitter irony in that one simple word. Beloved was everything Soubi was not; not by the person Kio suspected to have carved it there. Not unless the love between them matched a definition unlike any one that Kio was willing to accept.

He wondered how long it had been since the last time Soubi let somebody love him. That longing in his pale blue eyes swept him away so many times since they had met. They held a flame that still burned bright and strong, yet something quenched it, every single day. He wanted to fuel it anew, color him truly beloved, ease that silent pain Soubi wanted to believe nobody could see. He wanted to give, yet Soubi did not wish to take; nothing beyond this.

He watched Soubi's chest rise and fall; soon, the rhythm of Kio's own breathing was like one with his. A crease on his forehead betrayed his pain; Kio felt his reason falter as he reached out his hand to touch the skin there, damp with sweat. He let his fingers slide down Soubi's cheek, along the line of his jaw and lower to rest upon his neck. Fingertips brushed a thick, rough line of a scar; feather-light touch across his collarbones and Kio shivered, mesmerized by texture and heat. He leaned over on one elbow and held his breath – this close, somehow a world of difference from any other time - close enough to believe that Soubi's own he felt on his face sufficed to sustain him like this.

He wasn't thinking. Perhaps he was, if he knew that, but it didn't matter. The closeness held him bound with a tender spell; it drew him in – right there, towards those dry, parted lips. Caught in a timeless net of breath and skin, Kio barely noticed a heavy hand resting against his arm. He closed his eyes, weightless, suspended in disbelief. So many times he had pictured this, yet this touch, this warmth around and within him, surpassed anything imagination could have conjured up. Reality warped and bent around him, melted and faded away.

He breathed Soubi's name against his mouth; answered by a sigh, he felt the last of his restraint dissolve in the softest brush of lips against lips.

Soubi's hand on his shoulder pulled him gently down. Kio pressed a tender kiss to his scarred throat, afraid to move lest the brittle moment shatter and fade. Questions burned on his tongue, yet he dared not speak; not unless--

"Seimei..."

That name, not his – not now, not ever – not in a thousand years, no matter what he did. Not in this reality that had crushed his heart upon its violent return. Kio's chest grew too tight to breathe. Fleeting poison, too much to absorb and remain unscathed.

Perhaps he, too, was never meant to walk away from this without scars of his own.

Seimei. The name scorched his thoughts like a curse. "Shh," he heard himself whisper against the heartache, "It's all right. I'm here."

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March 6-8th, 2006


End file.
